Gamejam Life Lessons/ Post Mortem

I participated in Ludum Dare - a gamejam where you make a game in weekend.

What went right

1. The theme was good?

Although I hated on the theme at first, in hindsight it was really good. I did come up really fast with an idea I really liked.

2. Low-res pixelart = perfect for jams

I just love how it turned out in the end, especially all the little, squishy characters ^^I used Aseprite to make the pixelart (which is just an incredible tool!!) together with the Endesga color palette. Plus another thing I can recommend if you’re doing pixelart for the jam is to keep it low-res to have less work - all my sprites were 16px and 2 frame animations, but it definitely works!

3. Vlambeer knows how to make games feel good

I implemented a lot of the things Vlambeer suggests to make action games feel better, like big bullets, lots of enemies, screenshake etc. If you make action games you should definitively check our their talk:

4. Take care of yourself

Taking care of yourself is super important! Your game quality will suffer, if you’re just a living, sleep-deprived zombie by day 2. I tried getting every night at least 8 hours of sleep, ate well, stayed hydrated and took walks in the forest each day. It’s super important to plan time to re-charge your bodies’ batteries, so you can stay productive throughout the days. You will get more done in the same amount of time if you’re well rested!

What went wrong

Ok now that you know what to do, here is what NOT to do :D Learn from my mistakes so you don’t have to repeat them.

1. Don’t overscope!

I had a feeling from the beginning that this was gonna be a very ambitious project. Essentially I would be making 2 games at once (a roguelike + a shop simulator). I ended up trying to implement the shop simulator part in the last day when my brain was mush. (that’s another piece of advice, don’t do the important work on the last day)2 hours before the Jam deadline I decided to call it quits and polished what I have. I personally think that’s the better option, instead of handing in a buggy mess.

2. It can be fun to collab

I wanted to collab with someone, but it didn’t happen because time difference. Could have been really fun to do It was my favorite part last time around c:

Thank you for reading! Did something I wrote resonate with you and your process?Also if you want, you can play the little demo I ended up submitting: